1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus, a function management method, a computer program, and an information processing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
An information processing apparatus, such as a personal computer (PC) or a handheld terminal (e.g., a cellular phone or a portable game machine), uses various applications and programs to carry out various kinds of information processing. For instance, the user may purchase from a dealer a CD-ROM or the like in which a desired application is stored. Then, the user installs the application from the purchased CD-ROM into a PC. Alternatively, the user may download the application from a server through a network to run the application on the PC.
The number of user-available applications is increasing day by day with popularization of the Internet. Although these applications are supplied from application providers, it is very difficult for users to correctly understand their respective contents and executable processing. Even if the user purchases or downloads a new desired application and then installs it into a PC or the like, the application does not typically execute processing being up to user's expectations.
On the other hand, systems for searching contents, such as music and movies, are considerably satisfied by their users. Among the systems, for example, a content presenting system, which has been used in the art, allows a content-providing server to automatically search a desired content with characteristics similar to those of one acquired by the user and then recommends the content selected as a search result to the user. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-234596 discloses a system that performs a process of editing a content acquired from the content-providing server and then uploads the edited content to its own server, followed by providing another user with the content. In this manner, various proposals for search and circulation systems for contents, such as music and movies, have been proposed.
However, applications for executing data processing, in contrast to music contents or the like, have been desired to satisfy a wide variety of demands, such as demands for their abilities of executing user-demanded data processing and their compatibilities with other applications being already used by the user. Thus, there is a difficulty in recommending or providing appropriate application. Even if such recommendation or provision of an appropriate application is only based on user's preference information like the one about music contents, the user does not satisfy the application in many cases.
Therefore, various proposals have been made for providing a process for presenting application programs for carrying out various kinds of data processing and a technology for adequately constructing the execution environments and assisting user's operation of the applications (see, for example, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-84321, 11-143695, and 2008-21095.